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Wednesday, 8 October 2008

LITTLEWOODS CHANGES COLOURS

The top picture of the Littlewoods entrance area was taken on a rainy day in the mid 70's.The Overgate store stretched from the Old Steeple area to the Boots corner zone.The ground floor sold clothing, household goods and food, while upstairs there was a café/restaurant whose tables I remember had sugar kept in large glass shakers instead of bowls, which folk often mistook for salt. Many plates of chips were ruined as a consequence!Next to Littlewoods on the photo is the small yellow & blue baker shop of Andrew G Kidd, and just out of view with its red shop sign glimmering behind the trees, is Dixons, who sold TV's, audio equipment, cameras etc.Then for some reason, in the mid 80's, Littlewoods store changed its colour scheme from blue to orange. Anyway, the reason for the crowds hanging around in the second picture was because it was Rag Day.Students floats, pipe band and so on.

7 comments:

I remember going to the Littlewoods cafe as a wee lad during the early 1980s, when shopping with my mum, gran and granddad. We would either go there, to the cafe within the old Tesco in the Wellgate (right behind the toy section!), or to the cafe in British Home Stores.

I remember that the Littlewoods cafe had a bizarre Generation Game-approach to washing up, whereby you (or a waitress, I can't quite remember) would put their tray/dishes onto a conveyor belt, and thus they would slide (I assume) onto the kitchen - as a nipper, I used to sit at the table transfixed by empty cups and saucers moving slowly across the belt, wondering where on earth they would end up!

Graeme I remember that too! the conveyor belt. Must have been cutting edge technology back then.

I think I only once made it into The Amber Room which was the smaller, gloomy tearoom in Littlewoods. It looked out on the covered precinct in the Overgate, and I think it was designed with the child-less adult in mind. It was just that bit more mysterious.

The wee AJ Kidd shop next to Littlewoods was a godsend for us, the workers in Overgate.Although I was one level below the manager in Claude Alexander, where I worked from 1973 to '78, I took on the duty of going to AJK for the morning tea break vittles (normally a junior's responsibility), so I could make sure my particular rolls were ordered correctly - "Two fried egg rolls, sunny side up, softly fried..."8=)

Hello, I am just asking if anyone has any info/memories I can show my Grandad he used to be a manager of Dundee littlewoods and I am putting a few photos etc together for him. Hes nearly 80 so 60s to 90s would be great!